The inspiration this week at Sepia Saturday is a photo of a wall-mounted clock in what appears to be some kind of workshop. I couldn’t find a photo of a clock, but I thought of “workshop” and “work” and remembered these 3 photos from my granddad, Douglas’s, collection. It seems to be a Works Outing, probably from somewhere near Dunfermline, Fife – I’m not sure where he worked at the time. Here we are getting off the Magical Mystery Tour bus – I wonder if there was rowdy singing on the way?

and here are some of the Lads on the ferry – I wonder where we are going? At least no one is hanging over the side. Yet. Billy Bunter’s off to forage for buns, but someone else forgot to bring his teeth…

We’ve reached the next stage of our journey, but Bert is too much of a weakling to allow us to continue so I hope East Arms is a pub. However, there is extra good news

there are THREE (yes, dear reader, three) clocks in this photo :-) That’s Douglas in the Commodore in the middle, trying to control his homies.

I hope they all had a good time, and that everyone got home safely, but I’m curious about where they went. I can’t find a place called “East Arms” using Google, and we don’t have half-timbered buildings in Scotland, so I suspect they ventured further afield. Any ideas?

UPDATE! Thanks to Mike Brubaker and Michael Inkpen, I now know that the lads were far from home. It can’t have been a day trip as they were at East Arms, Hurley, Maidenhead in Berkshire, 435 miles away from home. Here’s how it looks a few decades on

It would take at least 7 1/2 hours to get there today – wonder how long it took them in their coaches before motorways?

FURTHER UPDATE!

Mike Inkpen emailed me to say “I’m pretty sure this is the place where the coaches are drawn up.

It’s Thames Side, Henley on Thames. Look at the building facing us and
the skyline. The river here is used for the Henley Royal Regatta and the
mooring mid-stream and the judges booth all add up.”

I think he’s right. So was it a Works Outing to the Henley Regatta, or did they just happen to pass through at the right time? It’s a long way to go, so I suspect they were on a bigger trip with a bigger purpose. It could also have been a Masonic Lodge trip, as Douglas was a Mason.

FURTHER FURTHER UPDATE!

Thanks Mike – he has found the place that the Lads probably boarded the ferry, at Thameside. It looks quite similar to where they got off the buses

What great photos! Looks like they had a fun time. I can’t believe that guy was pulling the wagon! Maybe he was practicing for a strong-man competition, or perhaps the wagon was actually standing still and he was just posing. :)

At first glance I didn’t see the clocks in the last photo, not that clocks matter at all when you have great photos like these. Aren’t fellow bloggers wonderful? Because we’re from all over the world, sometimes a reader is bound to know the location of a mystery photo’s setting. Don’t you suspect his pulling the carriage was a gag, a joke?

Not only suits and ties but they don’t look like ‘lads’ anymore. TIme and again we are reminded that people looked so much older altogether in those days. Well done those fellow bloggers for helping to solve part of the mystery.

Who would have thought that 3 photos of a Works Do could be such fun. No wonder Douglas kept them. I wish he had marked the back of them with a date and details of the event, but they’ve still made me smile :-)

Jo, this is a wonderful post … and I’m glad that they guys could help you in defining the locations! The second photo, on the boat, cracks me up … I imagine the three sitting down to be the kind of guys that always buckle up in the car. Priceless picture. Thanks for working so hard on your post, I loved it.